Her answer was spot on.
Every tour we have been on has been a display of a homogoneous student body of middle to upper class white kids. Which is fine, but makes it really difficult to swallow the disadvantaged argument.
There are only so many spots. We are in an underserved, low-income, majority-minority high school where the kids are resilient and scrappy and amazing. Of 500+ graduating seniors, we annually have 1-2 accepted and attending T20 schools - out of hundreds of hard-working students.
The advantages her son has had in life will give him a head start no matter where he ends up. It is insanely frustrating to hear adults begrudging a hard-working student that is low-income, URM or otherwise. The diversity percentages in most top schools are still shockingly low.
My daughter knows she would be a lock for the Ivies if she was black or hispanic, but we’ve always told her life isn’t fair. All she can control is what she does, but still, I wonder, will she harbor any resentment? I don’t think she will, but it does put some of these kids in tough spots.
@tpike12 , are you pretending to be Lisa?
Tpike12 - no one is a lock for the Ivies - no one.
^“My daughter knows she would be a lock for the Ivies if she was black or hispanic”
Perhaps you should encourage her to focus on competing for a spot among the 55-60% of students that share her complexion? Sounds like you are enabling a sense of victimization. In response to your rhetorical question, “Will she harbour any resentment”. That would be a misplaced reaction.
If she doesn’t get in it will likely be because some other kid with a similar background had better grades or a more distinguished application. News flash @tpike12 …NEWS FLASH…White kids get into Ivies and other top schools. They need to stand out among their peers.
By the way no one regardless of race is a “lock for Ivies” and any suggestion to the contrary is both entitled and arrogant.
“I don’t think she will, but it does put some of these kids in tough spots.”
What is a tough spot is to work your whole life, to overcome racism and extreme economic hardship, only to have people assume that you were handed a free ticket to college–even if you don’t check the race box.
A tough spot is being born into a poor neighborhood filled with unsafe water and no library or grocery store. Going to a solid public school paid for by mom and dad is not a “tough spot”.
My own kids don’t have the racial pedigree for any privilege (too dark to be white, too mixed to be anything else) and so was I. But life gives to the go-getters. You can’t think about what could have been if life were fair. That will drive you mad.
It’s been eye-opening to be a college counselor based in a city. Almost all of the local events that colleges hold for counselors are in the northern or western Chicago suburbs near the highest concentrations of rich white kids. These are mostly intended for high school counselors, but independent counselors come too. In a given year, I’ll be invited to thirty or more luncheons, breakfasts, etc. On the rare occasion that there’s a single event in the city, it’s generally hosted by Canadian or UK colleges who don’t know the demographics here.
Colleges are out beating the bushes to market themselves to rich white kids. Don’t be fooled. Look where they spend the recruitment dollars.
@Leigh22 nailed it - entitlement. White men are accepted into Ivies and other elite colleges at a rate that is higher than justified by their SATs and GPAs, more so than either URMS or women in STEM.
I guess that neither “Lisa” nor her son has an understanding of statistics, or they have never taken the time to do basic research. If they had, they would have seen acceptance rates of under 10%, and looked at the scattergrams of SAT Scores and GPAs of accepted/rejected students and seen how many kids with perfect GPAs and perfect SAT scores are being rejected from those schools.
Naviance is also not doing people many favors when they show schools like that as “Matches” because the kid’s SATs and GPAs are in the mid range of the accepted kids.
I agree that no one is a lock anywhere. Nevertheless I understand Tpike12’s concern. Her daughter is sitting next to kids with hooks at school with lower scores and grades that are getting into schools she will be rejected from. Of course she will feel upset by this. Why is this any different than how Jews felt in the 50’s when they were unable to get into Ivys because of quotas?
@tpike12 = Lisa. I hope the guidance offered in this article gets through. It would be a gift to your child.
A 1570 SAT/35 ACT NMF Engineering major female that is black or Hispanic is a lock for the Ivies. It’s not entitled, it’s true.
I’ve seen plenty of URM students with those stats rejected at my alma mater. There is more to admission than test scores.
I agree they do market to wealthy kids but they market to them regardless of whether they’re in the ball park for admission as far as stats, ECs etc…They’re looking to increase applications thereby lowering/maintaining their single digit admittance rates. Many of my D’s friends and classmates received ridiculous amounts of postcards, emails, AO visits encouraging them to apply etc…only to be rejected from many T20 schools for which they were very qualified according to the admission requirements/statistics. In my opinion the colleges are partly to blame for the feeding frenzy and anxiety surrounding the college application process.
I’m going to cry a river for the kid who doesn’t get into U Penn but has to rough it at CMU. Or the kid who doesn’t get into Dartmouth but has to somehow suck it up at Northwestern, Vanderbilt or Emory.
For all the whining about how unfair it all is… NONE of the kids who think they should be a “lock” at an Ivy League school is going to end up at Beauty School because some poor minority kid took their place. Unless of course- he or she wants to go to Beauty School. There are a couple of dozen colleges where the alleged “victim” of reverse discrimination are, quite literally- walk-on’s IF their grades, scores, etc. are as distinctive as their parents claim they are. I know the people in real life who whine and complain- but let’s face it- a kid who ends up at JHU instead of Princeton isn’t exactly a poster child for how terrible it is to be a white guy or an affluent, suburban white young woman.
Get a grip people. Nobody’s life is ruined because Brown didn’t roll out the red carpet and they had to slum it at U Chicago. And these kids who are allegedly a “lock” at an Ivy get a real life lesson in statistics- if Harvard is admitting 6% of its applicants, that means that 94% of them are getting rejected. Amirite?
@AriBenSion you are conflating discriminatory quotas and holistic admissions.
“Why is this any different than how Jews felt in the 50’s when they were unable to get into Ivys because of quotas?”
The goal of religion based quotas was to keep Jewish people out. This was in direct response to the Jewish population at Ivy schools exceeding 22%.
Holistic admissions is designed to incorporate and consider all aspects of an applicants background, ensure diversity of thought, religion, ethnicity, gender and geography. Almost the exact opposite of the quotas you reference. No one is excluded or capped. Certainly the admissions process as it stands today isn’t designed to keep white people (approx 60% at most elites) out.
To the contrary every individual has the opportunity to compete based on merit within cohorts or sub groups.
As a quick example: My son and a friend were both admitted to the same Ivy last year. The friend was African American and had very similar stats and grades as my kid. I was surprised how many parents offered my son congratulations and then expressed “frustration” that the URM friend took their kids spot. I felt obligated to inform them that in all likelihood it was my kid that their kid needed to beat out.
Everyone has a path to succeed. Your not a victim if you don’t secure a spot, and no one is entitled to or receives a spot based solely on test scores, URM status or athleticism.
@blossom - my D actually prefers UVA to any Ivy. The problem is we can’t afford UVA. The truth is that the Ivies are much more affordable for families in our situation. The Ivies are the golden ticket in more ways than one.
Perhaps the perception that the economy and society of the future will be a more competitive negative sum game for all but the wealthiest (who will increase the portion of economic growth gains that go to them) is inducing increasing resentment against others, with everyone trying to get every advantage s/he can and pull others down.
You really think all you need is to have a high SAT/ACT score and be a URM? It doesn’t matter what your HS grades are, what courses you took, how good/bad your LORs/ECs/essays… are?
In the Harvard lawsuit analysis, the vast majority of Hispanic applicants were rejected from all GPA+score stat deciles, including the top one. This same pattern of the vast majority of Hispanic applicants with top stat decile being rejected occurred consistently each and every analyzed year. The lawsuit also found the combined regression coefficent for female and engineering was essentially 0, suggesting no special boost for being female in engineering.
I read the Atlantic piece last night and found it fascinating. I thought the answer was pretty good. My kids are Asian, which, given the Harvard case, is kind of a strange place to be these days in the college admissions game. My son, who’s applying this year, is a million miles away from the Asian STEM nerd stereotype. He has pretty good but not great grades and SAT scores and is targeting mostly LACs in the top 50 range but nothing at the tippy top. There’s that moment in late junior year/early senior year where you take stock of where the kid is and you decide on the range. What has surprised me, reading CC and particularly reading the Atlantic piece, is that I find I am really grateful we are not at the top of the range and that we never aimed that high. If you have a child with credentials like those cited in the Atlantic piece, both you and your child have worked really hard and made many sacrifices and then you get there and you find you have much more company than you ever imagined and nothing is a slam dunk after all. I’m really shocked sometimes to read the stats for kids who’ve been turned away by the top schools. Although there may be a little bit of entitlement, there’s also a lot of genuine bewilderment and heartache, and I am glad our son hasn’t had to deal with that.
@Data10 - I’m well aware there is plenty of other data that is used for admissions. I could have also listed 97.5 UW, #1 Class Rank, 9 APs, Three Varsity Sports, Orchestra and Choir, Girls State, Science Awards, Started org that raised over $20,000, etc.
URMs exactly like her are not getting into the Ivies?